Album of the Year: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!

Tuff Ghost and I are in agreement. While the Fiery Furnaces get a nod (despite all the unadventurous sniping of the milquetoast-soliciting Pitchfork indierati) for the sheer cojones it took to put their grandmother on a spoken word album rife with old pianos, clavs, and a disco track, CYHSY came out of nowhere (ok, a nowhere apartment building in Park Slope at least) with just a tight, enjoyable, straight-up, Violent Femmes-meets-Yo La Tengo slice of urban romance that should have been the soundtrack to every ill-advised long distance romance from Somerville, Mass. to Silver Lake, California.

This is the sound of a bunch of bored, debt-ridden underachievers in their late 20s, pathetic indie fans who never stood a chance, rallying around a precocious unknown songwriter from Philadeplhia (lead singer Alec Ounsworth) and a loft full of vintage synths bought on eBay, creating what can only be called the sound of joy. For all the critical praise heaped this year on the Hedwig warble of Antony and the Johnsons, Christian space cadet / geography nerd Sufjan Stevens, or the 68 "wolf" bands to come out of Canada this year, it was a bunch of normal dudes -- failed temp workers and depressed DVD collectors wasting brain cells in the foosball corner of a Polish bar in Greene Point -- who showed a cynical market that its never too late to make good, tight, clean, honest music. And if Alec's solo stuff is any indication, the next album is going to be even sweeter.

Am I needlessly churning the blogosphere hype machine? Sure. But I'd be lying if I said that this little yellow and pink masterpiece didn't make this year a tad more bearable. And, apparently, that's not very easy to do.

Technorati Tags: album of the year clap your hands say yeah